In a conventional wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) cellular network, one cell covers one sector, and resources of the cell can ensure service quality for a user in the sector. When a quantity of users in the sector increases, the resources of the cell cannot ensure service quality for the users in the sector.
A co-cell technology is used to improve service quality. Specifically, one original sector is split into multiple sectors, and then multiple cells with a same scrambling code separately provide services for these sectors. User equipment UE served by using the co-cell technology needs to notify a network device of service quality of a sector in which the UE is located, so that the network device determines a specific sector providing a service for the UE. The network device configures a secondary common pilot channel (S-CPICH) for each sector, and configures a same primary common pilot channel (P-CPICH) for at least two sectors. In a single transmission (ST) mode, a sector independently provides a service for the UE, or in an omni-directional transmission (OT) mode, at least two sectors jointly provide a service for the UE. In this case, service quality for the UE is indicated by using a CQI. First, the UE may estimate channel quality indicators (CQI) of each single sector and each joint sector by measuring a primary pilot and a secondary pilot, the UE reports the channel quality indicators (CQI) of each single sector and each joint sector to a base station (NodeB), and after receiving the CQIs, the NodeB may determine, according to the received channel quality indicators (CQI) of each single sector and each joint sector, that a single sector or a joint sector provides a service for the UE.
In the prior art, in the ST mode, the user equipment UE can obtain a CQI of only one sector by performing estimation once. Therefore, if there are N sectors, and N is a positive integer, the UE needs to perform estimation N times to obtain CQIs of the N sectors. In the OT mode, the UE obtains a CQI of one joint sector by performing estimation once. This imposes a big challenge on complexity of the UE, and wastes hardware resources of the UE.